A look at Stuttering Therapy Online – a seven-part series
Please join us next week on Wednesday as we examine the unique aspects of treating stuttering with online therapy.
This week’s focus – pros and cons of teletherapy
From my point of view, there are many benefits in online treatment, including flexibility in scheduling, the ability to present my perspective to people all over the world, and the client’s ease in contacting for short consultations between sessions if they are experiencing difficulty with their self-help assignments. I am really hard pressed to think of the detriments. However, it is more important to consider what clients feel. The following is a summary of clients’ perceptions.
Pros:
- Extremely convenient
- Practicing in a familiar place feels relaxed and makes it much easier to make changes
- Comfortable for people who work
- Since the practice is done in the comfort of the person’s home, he can then continue practicing even without the clinician and there is no psychological “barrier” due to the change in location. For me it was easier to continue practicing and using the correct process even when you (the clinician) weren’t there because it was in a familiar place. That was really important at the beginning of the therapy.
Cons:
- There are no cons I can think of. At first I thought that since you can’t actually see me in person face to face you won’t know if I’m using the right process or not, but this was clearly not the case. I think that the reason why it was successful for me is because you were able to identify when I was using or not using the process.
Last week: Participation Procedures
Coming next week: What Clients Say About Teletherapy vs. Regular Therapy